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D.C. renamed a high school for John Thompson and spent $91 million expanding it. Now comes the harder part.

The ribbon fell this morning at 4530 MacArthur Blvd NW. But the school's debut under a new interim chancellor, a lame-duck mayor, and a district still fighting chronic absenteeism raises real questions about what comes after the ceremony.

Monday morning, Mayor Muriel Bowser stood outside 4530 MacArthur Boulevard NW and cut a ribbon. The building has a new name - John R. Thompson Jr. High School - and a new wing, and it was the first day of classes for roughly 51,500 students across DC Public Schools. The ceremony was well-attended and genuinely moving for many in the Ward 3 community. It was also, unmistakably, a goodbye.

Bowser leaves office at the end of this year. The city elects a new mayor in November. The school she named today will almost certainly be led, within a few months, by a chancellor chosen by someone else entirely. That context sat under every speech this morning like a second floor plan.

What the $91 million actually built

Mayor Bowser joined DC Public Schools, the DC Department of General Services, District leaders and community members to celebrate the first day of school and cut the ribbon on the newly expanded and newly renamed John R. Thompson Jr. High School, formerly known as MacArthur High School. With a $91 million expansion, the school can now serve up to 800 students in grades 9 through 12.

That number - 800 - is worth pausing on. Over the course of several construction phases, this project expanded the school's capacity from 200 to 800 students and, in this most recent phase, added a new 33,000-square-foot building. The original building opened in August 2023 and was always meant to grow. MacArthur High School was always meant to be a 'placeholder name' - it's based on the street the building is located on - as the local community and government considered what the school's final name should be.

The expansion includes an entire floor of new science classrooms, two new art rooms, two music classrooms, an administrative space, technology-equipped learning spaces and an outdoor classroom. There is more coming. The work at John R. Thompson Jr. High School will continue with a future expansion that includes a new auditorium and expanded cafeteria space, scheduled for completion in August 2028.

Since 2015, the District has invested nearly $5 billion in DCPS facilities, including major renovations, modernizations and new construction across all eight wards. In Ward 3, the District has invested more than $360 million across major school modernization projects, including $44 million for Hearst Elementary School in 2015, $78 million for Ben Murch Elementary School in 2018, $65 million for Eaton Elementary School in 2021, and $26 million for Stoddert Elementary School in 2026.

Why Thompson, and why now

Thompson, who passed away in 2020, is best known as a former coach of Georgetown University's men's basketball team, which he transformed into a powerhouse and national champion. But the argument for naming a school after him was never really about basketball. In 1989, Thompson famously walked off the court before a game against Boston College to protest an NCAA proposal that would have denied athletic scholarships to students if they didn't meet specific academic requirements. Thompson believed the rule would take opportunities away from players with lower-income backgrounds.

His grandson, Dylan Thompson, was there this morning. "It's clear that this city values what my grandfather did for basketball, but now to see that the city is recognizing him for his belief in the importance of education is truly incredible," Dylan Thompson said.

Since before MacArthur High School opened in 2023, community members and local officials had been searching for a new name for the Ward 3 public school, one that would epitomize the school's values: 'believe, belong, become.' The new name garnered unanimous support in the DC Council, where a bill to rename the school was approved.

A new chancellor, a leaderless district, and a November clock

The ceremony's other defining fact: Dr. Kim Jackson is entering her first school year as the interim chancellor, following the departure of Lewis Ferebee.

Outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the appointment on the same day as the city's primary elections - after the leading Democratic candidates vying to succeed her pledged not to retain Chancellor Lewis Ferebee in the role. That timing was not subtle. Ferebee, who had led DCPS for eight years and announced he was stepping down after eight years to accept a position as CEO of an educational nonprofit, had become a proxy fight in the mayoral race. Bowser's installation of Jackson on primary day looked, to many observers, like a defensive maneuver - lock in a DCPS insider before the next administration could demand something more disruptive.

Chancellor Jackson brings more than a decade of leadership within DCPS, beginning in 2012 as Principal of Seaton Elementary School. In her most recent role as Chief of Schools, she helped lead the launch of the district's annual Literacy Institute and oversaw the implementation of the new Building Blocks curriculum. Those are real credentials. The question is whether a caretaker appointment - explicitly interim, with a new mayor taking over in January - can drive anything resembling sustained policy, or whether the system simply coasts for five months while candidates and transition teams jockey for position.

DCPS campuses have struggled in recent years with chronic absences, subpar test scores and employees hiding unreported second jobs. That's the inheritance. Jackson is not responsible for creating those problems, but she's the one who has to hold things together through an election, a transition, and whatever federal pressure lands on the District this fall.

There is one piece of genuinely good news on assessments. Students are returning to school on the heels of an announcement that for the fourth consecutive year, DC students made academic gains in both math and reading on the statewide assessment. Verified. That said - four years of incremental gains have not moved the proficiency numbers to a place that reassures most parents. ELA proficiency at the Thompson school itself sits at 31.6%. More than two-thirds of students at the city's newest, most expensively built high school are not reading at grade level.

The bigger first-day picture

Thompson was the marquee event, but the 2026-27 school year opened with changes across the system. Four 'modernized' campuses - J.O. Wilson Elementary School, Tubman Elementary School, Malcolm X Elementary School, and Thomas Elementary School - are opening. Nine schools will be operating in temporary swing space locations during modernization work. Parents at those nine schools are spending the fall in buildings that are not their home campuses. That's not nothing.

There are 117 schools in DCPS, serving just over 51,500 students - attributed: WTOP - and the district has not had a permanent chancellor confirmed for this school year. The next chancellor will be chosen by whoever wins in November. That person will also inherit a city budget that carries a contingency list for social services, a federal government that has spent months threatening DC's fiscal autonomy, and a school system whose workforce morale data the city does not regularly publish.

What to watch at 4530 MacArthur Blvd

The school is named. The ribbon is cut. The hard administrative question - who runs DCPS past January, and with what mandate - remains genuinely open. The November mayoral election will settle it, but the answer won't arrive in time to matter for this semester.

In the meantime, the school at MacArthur Boulevard heads into its first year under a new name with a building that can now seat 800 students and a district leadership structure that is, at minimum, transitional. The auditorium won't be finished until 2028. The chancellor search hasn't started. Dylan Thompson's grandfather used to say that academics came before everything. The city put his name on the door. Whether the test scores follow is a different kind of construction project.

What D.C. Residents Should Watch

  • Chancellor search timeline: Whoever wins the November 3 mayoral election will control the permanent DCPS chancellor appointment. Watch whether any candidate commits publicly to a search process, a timeline, or a specific leadership profile before election day.
  • Chronic absenteeism data: DCPS is required to publish attendance data. Last year's numbers were bad. The first monthly report of the 2026-27 year, typically released in October, will be the first real indicator of whether anything improved over the summer.
  • Thompson's swing-space neighbors: Nine schools are operating out of temporary locations this fall. Find out which ones are near you at dcps.dc.gov - commute times and facility quality in swing space vary significantly ward to ward.
  • The 2028 auditorium completion: The Thompson expansion isn't finished. DGS is the contracting agency. Any delays to the August 2028 auditorium and cafeteria phase will hit students who are currently freshmen for the last part of their high school careers.
  • Ward 3 enrollment pressure: With capacity jumping from 200 to 800, how lottery demand for Thompson shifts - and whether the school's Equitable Access designated seats actually draw students from outside the neighborhood - will determine whether this becomes a genuinely citywide high school or a de facto Ward 3 institution.

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